


And He Never Forgave, And He Never Forgot: On Thorin Oakenshield, guilt, responsibility and PTSD

by bodysnatch3r



Series: The Hobbit Meta [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:03:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5686762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodysnatch3r/pseuds/bodysnatch3r
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meta regarding Thorin Oakenshield and PTSD.<br/><a href="http://bodysnatch3r.tumblr.com/post/60313759344/and-he-never-forgave-and-he-never-forgot-on">Originally posted to tumblr on 5 September 2013.</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	And He Never Forgave, And He Never Forgot: On Thorin Oakenshield, guilt, responsibility and PTSD

Thorin Oakenshield, as we all know, is a tragic, _tragic_ character.

The first image we get of Thorin is that of him in a situation that has the insanely high potential of being traumatic. In the introductory flashback we see him staring down at Thrór, who’s been driven mad by Gold Sickness.

Now, this comes from my personal experience: taking care of a sick loved one _will be_  traumatic, especially if you’re watching them literally fall apart knowing there’s nothing you can do. If the loved one is a relative, it gets bad. If the relative is a parental figure (and I have a feeling that’s what Thrór was to Thorin), things get _really_ bad.

You feel powerless, small, worthless: your self-esteem is severely undermined and so is your self-worth: they’re going mad (or dying, or sinking deeper and deeper into depression) and there is nothing in the world you can do to stop this. It’s an exhausting and scary ordeal during which many times any feeling of discomfort you might experience will be pushed aside with a definite feeling of guilt, which can vary from “ _Someone I love is sick, any and all feelings I might have are going to be stowed away until they feel better because they are more important than I am right now_ ” to “ _How **dare** I feel bad when they’re feeling bad_." 

If it goes on for too long, you’re going to snap under the pressure. Lucky for him ( _ha_.) Thorin doesn’t have the chance to snap: Erebor gets attacked by a dragon, which is mainly due to the fact that thanks to Thrór’s unstoppable greed, the dwarves of Erebor have amassed an insane amount of riches (including the Arkenstone).

Smaug attacks, and Thorin, the crown prince’s son and king’s grandson, whose duty is that to defend his people, _fails_ , simply put, (although there was no chance of success whatsoever) and loses his home, his security, his status and everything and all that was ever familiar to him. Dwarves are killed in front of him, he nearly gets crushed when Smaug tears down the door: "rock-hard” and “sturdy” as he may be (since he’s a dwarf, and dwarves are built to endure), these kind of things are bound to take a toll on someone’s psyche. In the terrifying moments of the attack, he fears for his life and for his family. The dwarves of Erebor are thus humiliated, exiled and reduced to tinkers, toymakers and smiths.

Despite this, Thorin is still aware of the enormous responsibility that hangs over his head: he is of Durin’s line, of noble blood, future King Under the Mountain (although he doesn’t really  _have_ a mountain to rule). He is subject to pressure, both from himself and from those around him, and it’s a pressure that comes with being high-up and being somewhat of a last hope for the dwarves of Erebor (this is before Fili and Kili ever came into the picture and skewed the entire “new/last hope” situation, and don’t get me started on the toll that their own bloody legacy as last members of the direct Line of Durin probably took on those two- witnessing their first entrance into Erebor will be painful, bittersweet, and I will probably spontaneously self combust from second-hand emotional turmoil). The image of him as a saviour is only reinforced when the Battle of Azanulbizar happens.

Which also is, incidentally, the second time Thorin is thrust head-first into a highly emotionally scarring scenario.

(To make a stupid metaphor, Smaug and Moria are an explosion, raw, visceral, straight to your face. Thrór’s madness is the sound of water dripping over and over when you’re already snuggled up in bed and feel too tired to get up and shut it properly.)

At Moria, Thorin’s world (which had already been torn apart once and then hastily put back together) is completely and once again turned upside-down, as far as the emotional side of it goes. The dwarves, hopeless, head straight-on into a desperate battle to try and reclaim something that was once theirs. Moria represents a last light in a blundering darkness- a light that is going to cost them all a great deal of pain.

First off, although he is not mentioned anywhere in the movie (and whether or not he is seen is still currently being speculated) it is known that Frerin, Thorin’s little brother, dies fighting. Now, according to dates and all that, Frerin was 48 years old at the time of his death, which by dwarf standards basically means he’s a kid (Fili and Kili are 82 and 77, respectively, at the time of the Quest for Erebor). Secondly, Thorin is forced to witness this:

and that, ladies, gentlemen and mxs, is probably everyone’s _worst nightmare_.

Relative we hold dear being viciously murdered? Check. Relative who acted as a father figure being viciously murdered? Check. Relative who was sick being killed after all they’ve gone through? Check. Said relative has been killed in a horrible horrible way? Check, check, and  _check_.

And if  _this_ isn’t the face of heartbreak, then I don’t know what is.

And so Thorin reacts the only way he can: he gets mad. He gets spiteful, revengeful, scorned: the same way he got after Thranduil "betrayed him" during Smaug’s attack (Thorin’s world is black and white: you’re either with him, or against him). Thorin is a fighter and he’s fought all his life, and so he bites back, and by biting back, becomes a legend, and also seals his fate.

“ _There is one I could follow. There is one I could call king_.” Balin says, reminiscing, as he reassures Kili he’s done nothing wrong although he’s joked about orcs, something Thorin can’t even begin to accept.

In that scene, the moment Kili mutters “ _Orcs_.” Thorin starts, as if he’s been waken by a light, light slumber. Which could mean two things or, even better, a combination of the two. 

One: Thorin’s scared shitless because he knows the journey is perilous, and as such needs to keep constant guard, and only lets himself sleep for restless short periods of time.

Two: Thorin  _can’t sleep_ because of what goes on in his head, let it be nightmares or flashbacks. And saying “orcs” out loud just makes matters worse. He knows what an orc raid is, and it sure isn’t a _joke._ He cannot possibly comprehend how anyone could joke about it (but the reality of orcs is, I think, so far from Fili and Kili’s reality that they have no problem joking about it: after all, up to now they’ve probably lived a relatively sheltered, prosperous life in the Blue Mountains). But Thorin, on the other hand, knows just what degree of brutality and violence orcs can reach. He’s seen it. He’s experienced it, down to every horrifying, devastating detail.

After Moria he has almost nothing left. He wanders through thousands of corpses, searching not for one body, but for three: his brother, his grandfather and his father, whom, right then and there, probably no one knew had lost his mind yet. And yet, Balin sees Thorin as a figure of hope, as a last glimmer in the darkness (this is reinforced by the way the entire sequence is filmed: Thorin appears shrouded in light, a sort of “heavenly savior” that will guide the dwarves to salvation- and yet he is covered in dirt and blood and grime).

But Thorin is fragile, and he is, deep down, scared:

“ _There is no choice, Balin. Not for me_.”

There is a legacy and a debt he feels he must pay back to his father and his grandfather and all who came before him: he lost the kingdom of Erebor, he watched most of his family die and now he has his chance to become a leader, a ruler and a king. The only thing that ties him to his past and to what he once was is a key and a map, and he cannot let go of either. The same way he cannot (and will never be able to) let go of the past. Having built a new kingdom for the dwarves in Ered Luin is not enough to fix Thorin. He needs more.

This need to redeem himself in his own eyes for his “failures” (most were things well beyond his control) is what pushes him to go on a quest that will eventually claim his life and that of his nephews (and may I add, only direct heirs). But in his mind he is doing something right, he knows this is what he is  _supposed to do_. He is the leader of a lost people, burdened with the pain of seeing said people destroyed in the blink of an eye: when Bilbo attempts to go back to Rivendell when they’re camping in the Misty Mountains, he’s arguing with Bofur, yes, but not loud enough to wake anyone. Despite this, Thorin is very much alert- not surprisingly. As a dwarf who’s seen what he’s seen, he has a lot (too much) to think about. And in his case, sleeping sometimes can be too difficult, too scary, too much of a reminder of what’s happened to him to truly offer any solace. There’s a high chance that whenever Thorin closes his eyes, all he sees is dragonfire and beheaded kings. And at Bilbo’s “ _No you don’t. You don’t understand. None of you do. You’re Dwarves. You’re used to this life, to living on the road, never settling in one place, not belonging anywhere!_ ” he is once again confronted with every little single thing he thinks he’s ever done wrong. Which, in one way or another, involve each one of his traumatic experiences.

And so when he is presented with the horrifying reality that the only  _good_ thing he’s ever done (kill Azog and win back Azanulbizar) was ultimately a failure, too, everything comes crashing down. 

This is the pain of Frerin dying, this is the horror of Thrór’s beheading, the emptiness of Thrain going mad. _This_ right here is a scared little boy who’s been forced to grow up too fast witnessing what little remnant of faith in himself he ever had going up in smoke. Thorin thought he’d avenged the desecration of the dwarves’ sacred halls and avenged his family. Thorin thought he’d done at least  _one thing_ right.

But he’s proven wrong there, too. And so the scared little boy does what he knows best: he gets mad, he fights back. He is  _empty_ right now: everything he’s ever done in his life doesn’t matter, because Azog is painstakingly still alive. And so Thorin’s number one objective is to fix things, to restore the fragile balance he’d created for himself: after all, he is Thorin _Oakenshield_ , and one does not gain an epitome unless he’s truly done something extraordinary. But nothing is ever extraordinary enough in Thorin’s eyes. The Lonely Mountain is still in Smaug’s grasp, and Ered Luin is nothing but a pale shadow compared to it. He’s led his people through thick and thin, but it  _doesn’t matter_ , not right now. Azog is still alive. The one thing he’d done right is a lie.

And Thorin is willing to make things right for himself, whatever the cost. Which is why the entire conflict between Thorin and Azog is basically ten minutes of unapologetic, gratuitous foreshadowing: Thorin is well aware this quest might cost him his life. He isn’t afraid of danger and he isn’t afraid to die, he is so desperate to fix himself and what he’s done that he isn’t going to stop, ever, until he sees Erebor returned to the dwarves. Because, after all, despite all that it’s been through, despite the fact that Thrór went mad there, Erebor is still  _home_.

Erebor is still a symbol of hope to him: it is where he grew up, where Dwalin grew up, where Balin acted as a tutor and a friend, where his brother and sister were born. Where he was  _happy_ , truly happy, where no shadows hung over him, where there were no legacies to prove, no ghosts to live with. And so when he sees the Lonely Mountain again, Thorin can’t help but  _smile_ : and it’s one of the few smiles he allows himself to show throughout the film.

It’s one of the few times he allows himself to feel hope, the same hope he’s already given to so many with all the things he’s done.

And that is worth more than all the gold in Erebor.


End file.
